Liberty close to hiring former Mississippi coach Hugh Freeze

Nearly a year and a half after resigning at Ole Miss, Freeze is expected to become the coach at Liberty barring a last-minute snag, a person with knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports.

The person asked to be unidentified because the deal had not yet been finalized.

Former Liberty coach Turner Gill resigned earlier this week. Freeze, 49, had previously been named the offensive coordinator of an Alliance of American Football team in October.

Freeze resigned at Ole Miss in July 2017 as the football program was being investigated by the NCAA and his own personal conduct had come under scrutiny. USA TODAY Sports reported that Freeze made a one-minute phone call on a university-issued phone to a female escort service, and athletic director Ross Bjork subsequently said the university had found a "troubling" pattern in his phone records.

Months after Freeze's resignation, the NCAA placed Ole Miss football on probation for three seasons and determined that Freeze had failed to monitor the program.

Liberty's athletic director, Ian McCaw, resigned at Baylor amid a sexual assault scandal involving multiple members of the football team.

The Flames are a relatively-new Football Bowl Subdivision team that competed in the Football Championship Subdivision prior to 2017. They went 6-6 this season.